Alicia Nash

Alicia Esther Nash (née Lardé Lopez-Harrison; January 1, 1933 – May 23, 2015) was a Salvadoran-American physicist. The wife of mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr., she was a mental-health care advocate, who gave up her professional aspirations to support her husband and son, who were both diagnosed with schizophrenia. Her life with Nash was chronicled in the 1998 book, A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar, as well as in the 2001 film of the same title directed by Ron Howard, in which she was portrayed by Jennifer Connelly. Alicia Lardé Lopez-Harrison was born on January 1, 1933, in El Salvador, the daughter of Alicia Lopez-Harrison and Carlos Lardé, a doctor. The Lardé Lopez-Harrison family also included two boys, Carlos and Rolando Lardé. Both of her parents came from socially prominent, well-travelled families who spoke several languages. Her aunt was the poet Alice Lardé de Venturino; her paternal grandfather was Jorge Lardé, a chemical engineer. When Lardé was a child, her father traveled to the United States a few times before deciding to move the family there permanently in 1944. After first settling in Biloxi, Mississippi, the family later moved to New York City. Lardé was accepted to the Marymount School with the help of a letter of recommendation from El Salvador's Ambassador to the United States. Following graduation from Marymount, Lardé was accepted into Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to study physics. She was one of very few women studying at MIT in the 1950s. There she met her future husband, John Forbes Nash, Jr. Despite signs of Nash's mental illness which had emerged in the early 1950s, the couple married in 1957. She became pregnant with their son John Charles Martin Nash, who was to develop schizophrenia, in 1958; shortly before the birth in 1959, Nash was committed to McLean Hospital to receive psychiatric treatment for his illness. After spending 50 days in hospital, he was released, but was re-committed three times over the next few years against his will, by his sister.